I Dream of “A” Papers

1. I Dream of “A” Papers How to Grade Faster and Improve Student Writing By: Charla Strosser and Kelli Wood

2. Why Ask Students to Write? • Helps students draw connections to course objectives, practice critical thinking, analyze content, and develop communication skills. • Helps you evaluate student learning, comprehension, and skills acquisition.

3. How to Get What You Want It is important to give students a specific written assignment so that both you and your students are aware of what you want and how they will be evaluated. When students don’t know what you expect, you often get garbage. When your instructions aren’t specific, neither are their papers. So, the first step to good writing is writing a good assignment.

4. Key Components of a Writing Assignment • Purpose • Audience • Occasion • Evaluation

5. Purpose It is important to understand what learning outcomes and product you are looking for and communicate that with your students clearly. Here are some of the most commonly used types of writings and how they are applied in the classroom.

6. Consider how these types of writing address different course objectives and result in different types of papers. • Information Words • ask you to demonstrate what you know about the subject, such as who, what, when, where, how, and why. • Relation Words • ask you to demonstrate how things are connected. • Interpretation Words • ask you to defend ideas of your own about the subject. Do not see these words as requesting opinion alone (unless the assignment specifically says so), but as requiring opinion that is supported by concrete evidence. Remember examples, principles, definitions, or concepts from class or research and use them in your interpretation. (Reading Assignments: http://www.unc.edu/depts/wcweb/handouts/readassign.html )

7. Information Words • define — give the subject's meaning (according to someone or something). Sometimes you have to give more than one view on the subject's meaning • explain why/how — give reasons why or examples of how something happened • illustrate — give descriptive examples of the subject and show how each is connected with the subject • summarize — briefly list the important ideas you learned about the subject • trace — outline how something has changed or developed from an earlier time to its current form • research — gather material from outside sources about the subject, often with the implication or requirement that you will analyze what you have found (Reading Assignments: http://www.unc.edu/depts/wcweb/handouts/readassign.html )

8. Relation Words • compare — show how two or more things are similar (and, sometimes, different) • contrast — show how two or more things are dissimilar • apply — use details that you've been given to demonstrate how an idea, theory, or concept works in a particular situation • cause — show how one event or series of events made something else happen • relate — show or describe the connections between things (Reading Assignments: http://www.unc.edu/depts/wcweb/handouts/readassign.html )

9. Interpretation Words • assess — summarize your opinion of the subject and measure it against something • prove, justify — give reasons or examples to demonstrate how or why something is the truth • evaluate, respond — state your opinion of the subject as good, bad, or some combination of the two, with examples and reasons • support — give reasons or evidence for something you believe (be sure to state clearly what it is that you believe) • synthesize — put two or more things together that have not been put together in class or in your readings before; do not just summarize one and then the other, and say that they are similar or different--you must provide a reason for putting them together that runs all the way through the paper (Reading Assignments: http://www.unc.edu/depts/wcweb/handouts/readassign.html )

10. Audience It’s important that both you and your students understand the goal audience for the paper. Knowing who the audience is helps students understand what level of formality and language to use, what foundational knowledge they can assume the audience has, and a general set of expectations about audience bias, etc.

11. Possible Audiences • Instructor • Classmates • Someone Unfamiliar with the Subject • Experienced Community Members • General Communities • Other Specific Groups (ex: Citizens of El Paso or Pediatric Nurses) • Or Combinations of the Above

12. Occasion It is important to decide early, and clearly inform students whether writing is high stakes or low stakes because it will impact the level of formality and depth of discussion.

13. High Stakes/Low Stakes • High Stakes: Formal essays, Research Papers, Critical Analyses (In short, anything that is a major grade or component of the course.) • Low Stakes: In Class Writing, Prewriting, Reading Logs, Journals, Informal or Short Responses (In short, anything that could be considered writing to learn or to check basic understanding and knowledge of the material.

14. Formatting • If you have specific requirements for the way the assignment is formatted, it is important that you clearly explain those. For instance, you may want to include specific instructions for: • Margins • Font size and type • Documentation style • Paper length • Spacing • Use of graphics

15. Evaluation In order to help students better meet your goals for the writing, share the criteria you will use for grading before they write their papers. This allows students to address the criteria before, during, and after their writing. One of the easiest ways to do this is with a rubric.

16. What is a Rubric? A rubric can be anything from a checklist to a chart. Rubrics clearly outline the grading criteria for the assignment in an organized fashion. Here are some examples:

17. Evaluation The essay will be evaluated based on the following standards. Approximately 20 points will be allocated to each criterion.

18. Comments: Total Grade: ____________

19. All criteria will be evaluated using the following six-point scale: ________ 1) Quality of description of nonconforming behavior. Is it clear to a naïve reader how the behavior violated a social norm.? ________ 2) Identification of the condition you selected to manipulate (i.e., group size or group desirability)? Did the two situations accurately manipulate the identified variable? ________ 3) Description of the student’s reactions and the reactions of other people to the behavior. Focus on any differences in those reactions between the two situations. ________ 4) Description of at least one past situation that involved normative social influence. Based on the description, did the situation actually involve normative social influence? ________ 5) Description of how group size or group desirability might have affected the student’s experience in that situation? ________ 6) Mechanics (grammar, spell-check, etc) ________ HOLISTIC SCORE

22. Using Rubrics to Grade • Plan your work; work your plan • When students turn in their papers, also have them turn in the rubric you handed out with the assignment. Use the rubric to guide you as you grade. • A good time saving tip is to read the paper through once, then read through the rubric. As you do, mark criteria that are clear from the first reading. For those issues that are unclear, go through the paper again, specifically looking for those things and mark your rubric as appropriate.

23. More Using Rubrics • Don’t add new stuff at the last minute. • If there are things you notice about the paper that are not addressed in your rubric, wait until next semester or the next revision of the rubric. • Your rubric should reflect your assignment, so don’t include points unless they are important to the assignment or your expectations for the paper.

24. Minimal Marking • When grading student writing with a rubric you don’t need to write a novel in terms of end comments. Long comments not only tend to intimidate students and often don’t get read. • You don’t need to make copious comments in the text itself because students should draw connections between the rubric and their writing and come discuss problem areas with either you or the consultants at the writing center. • You may find it helpful to use abbreviations and shorthand in your in-text comments. • For example: GWS= goes without saying, AWK = awkward, ARQ = avoid rhetorical questions. • Of course, make sure to either hand out a key to these or cover them in class when you hand back graded papers.

25. Tips • Include sample topics and models of papers whenever possible. This allows students to feel more confident and generally results in better work. It’s really worth the effort. • Make sure to provide students with a list of topics you don’t want them to write about if necessary.

26. Links • Designing Assignments • http://www.utoronto.ca/writing/design.html • http://www.lib.washington.edu/help/guides/design.html • http://tengrrl.com/tens/034.shtml • http://www.cwru.edu/artsci/engl/writing/pedagogy/assign.html • Reading Assignments • http://www.unc.edu/depts/wcweb/handouts/readassign.html • Rubric Generators • http://teachers.teach-nology.com/web_tools/rubrics/general/ • http://rubistar.4teachers.org/index.php • http://landmark-project.com/classweb/tools/rubric_builder.php3 • http://www.shambles.net/pages/staff/rubrics/ • Minimal Marking • http://tengrrl.com/tens/032.shtml • http://titan.iwu.edu/~writcent/minimal_marking.htm • http://www.indiana.edu/~cwp/lib/gradebib.shtml

27. Discussion